[CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to Dublin

Fri Oct 9 21:46:07 UTC 2015

I think Fadi would say that the statement is accurate and that current
events fit under the following part of his statement:

 if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the
community.

Greg
(speaking only for myself)

On Fri, Oct 9, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Paul Rosenzweig <
paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com> wrote:

> Jordan
>
>
>
> This is a magnificent effort for which you are to be commended.  I have
> two modest amendments to your timeline to make –
>
>
>
> First, you note the testimony before the Senate in February 2015.  I think
> it is worth noting the express commitment from the CEO of ICANN: Senator
> Thune asked whether the ICANN Board would “send a proposal to NTIA that
> lessens the Board’s power or authority?” Fadi Cheade responded, “We will if
> the community and the stakeholders present us with a proposal. We will give
> it to NTIA, and we committed already that we will not change the proposal,
> that if we have views on that proposal, we should participate with the
> community. Once that proposal comes from our stakeholders, we will pass it
> on to NTIA as is.” Exchange available at
> http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-September/005263.html
> .
>
>
>
> Second, you note the July 2015 House testimony of A/S Strickling and CEO
> Cheade and say that “no objections” were made to the idea of membership.
> That is true, as far as it goes, but I find another exchange at that
> hearing far more significant to your story:
>
> According to Assistant Secretary Strickling’s testmony, “ICANN has
> indicated that it expects to receive both the ICG transition and CCWG
> accountability proposals at roughly the same time and that it will forward
> them promptly and without modification to NTIA.”
>
>
>
> I read these two items as reflecting a commitment by ICANN to Congress and
> to the NTIA that they will forward the CCWG-A proposals “without
> modification” or “as is” to the NTIA when delivered by the CCWG.  A fair
> reading of subsequent statements by the Chair of the Board (your redline
> FNs 40 and 45) is that ICANN’s testimony to Congress and its promise the
> NTIA (reflected in Strickling’s testimony) are no longer operative.
>
>
>
> From this I draw the same conclusions you have drawn – which is why I
> think this particular episode is worth noting.  It also makes me wonder
> whether/if the CEO intends to revise his testimony.
>
>
>
> Again, a strong +1 for putting in one place a useful history that bears
> directly on the issues at hand.
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> Paul Rosenzweig
>
> paul.rosenzweig at redbranchconsulting.com
> <paul.rosenzweigesq at redbranchconsulting.com>
>
> O: +1 (202) 547-0660
>
> M: +1 (202) 329-9650
>
> VOIP: +1 (202) 738-1739
>
> Skype: paul.rosenzweig1066
>
> Link to my PGP Key
> <http://www.redbranchconsulting.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=9>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Jordan Carter [mailto:jordan at internetnz.net.nz]
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 8, 2015 8:20 PM
> *To:* Accountability Cross Community <
> accountability-cross-community at icann.org>
> *Subject:* [CCWG-ACCT] Blog post on the Accountability work headed to
> Dublin
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Apologies for the interruption to your inbox. I've been doing a bit of
> work trying to make sense of all the events in the ICANN accountability
> debate. I wrote up a chronology of that, which is available attached to
> this post. A blog post with my reflections is below.
>
>
>
> Whatever part of the community you are from, and whatever your view on the
> substance of the debates we are having in the CCWG, I hope you can stand up
> in support of the multistakeholder model at this challenging moment. There
> is a lot at stake if this accountability effort fails, and the risk of that
> is not high but it is increasing.
>
>
>
> See many of you in Dublin next week!
>
>
>
> cheers
>
> Jordan
> ICANN Accountability - the chronology and Dublin thoughts
>
> 9 October - at
> https://internetnz.nz/blog/icann-accountability-chronology-and-dublin-thoughts
>
>
> You’ve probably had an experience in your life of being part of a
> difficult or complicated project – sometimes things go into a blur, or
> after months or years you find it hard to remember the order of significant
> events.
>
> Well, the debate regarding ICANN’s accountability is nothing if not
> complicated (not to say difficult!). I’ve been a participant in it as a
> member of the Working Group representing country-code domains since
> December 2014, and even over not quite a year, things get a bit blurry.
>
> To help me, and possibly you, I decided to pull together a short
> chronology of some of the key milestones. Dates of proposals, significant
> moments in the project, and so on.
>
> You can review (and critique) the chronology here:
>
> .pdf
> <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.pdf>
> .docx
> <https://internetnz.nz/sites/default/files/2015-10-09-ICANN-accty-chrono.docx>
>
> I didn’t expect that seeing this story in one short place would trigger
> some new insights, or remind me of some old ones, but it did. Here are some
> of them:
>
>    - *Astonishing progress:* since the end of last year, and the demise
>    of ICANN’s resistance to a community-led accountability process, the Cross
>    Community Working Group (CCWG) has made huge progress. It assessed previous
>    suggested accountability mechanisms; built requirements for a new
>    settlement; devised models that could deliver; took feedback in good faith
>    and worked together to overcome problems exposed in public debate. The
>    Second Draft Proposal of the group is workable, though it does not enjoy
>    consensus in the ICANN community yet.
>    - *Consistent resistance and delay:* the powers-that-be at ICANN have
>    resisted community-driven accountability reforms throughout this process.
>    The multi-month delay to establishing the CCWG speaks volumes. The group’s
>    work would have concluded next week in Dublin if we’d had the few more
>    months back in 2014. I say that not to lament it, but to make it clear
>    where responsibility lies for the current time pressure. Hint: the CCWG
>    isn’t responsible.
>    - *The rightness of multistakeholderism: *the community has followed a
>    true multistakeholder process. Compromise, diligence, thoroughness and a
>    willingness to compromise and think outside the box – all these have been
>    central to the work of the group. That work process is hard to maintain and
>    has been seriously challenged by the ICANN Board alleging a right to insert
>    “red lines” into part of the debate – on the critical matters of
>    enforcement. Those interventions place the credibility of the
>    multistakeholder process at risk. In doing so, the ICANN Board isn’t only
>    putting the accountability reform process under pressure it doesn’t need,
>    it is delaying the group’s ability to complete its task (others have more
>    forceful views - see the note by William Currie, an Advisor to the CCWG
>    appointed by the Public Experts Group last year, here
>    <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/2015-October/006410.html>).
>    The follow on consequence: the IANA Stewardship transition itself is
>    delayed, a consequence only a very few people would celebrate (and I am not
>    one of them).
>
>
>    - *Proof of need:* looking over the short history of the current
>    debate gives ample evidence of why the reforms demanded by the community
>    are required.  Without the spur provided by the IANA Stewardship
>    transition, this opportunity would never have opened up. We should be
>    grateful to the Obama administration for the chance provided to build a
>    long term, responsible framework for ICANN accountability.
>    - *Some welcome flexibility:* a year ago, if you’d thought you would
>    hear ICANN saying it would welcome binding arbitration, the ability to
>    remove Board directors, a community right of veto in bylaws changes – many
>    would have stared at you and laughed. If you’d suggested a community group
>    working in open multistakeholder ways could deliver a work output the
>    quality the CCWG has matched, the same stares and laughs. But both have
>    happened. Things have moved.
>
> Everyone involved with or watching this process will have different
> insights, or may agree happily or disagree sharply with mine. I offer them
> up in public as part of my own commitment to accountability: it is
> reasonable for people involved in the conversation to share their thinking.
> In any case, my own thought processes work best with dialogue – not with
> solitude.
>
> ICANN is on the verge of historic, meaningful and positive reform. The
> Numbers and Protocols communities, watching this process through gritted
> teeth and very keen for the transition to go ahead, can hopefully celebrate
> what is happening. With ICANN having a curious dual role for the Names
> community (policy forum and IANA functions operator), there has been no
> alternative to making accountability improvements now.
>
> (To my technical community friends - if there’s any doubt in your mind
> about why we need change – review the chronology, remember the pushback,
> remember what you guys faced early this year.)
>
> We’re all close to the end of the debate. You can sense it – proposals are
> crystallising, timeframes are compressing, volunteers are at the end of
> reasonable commitments of time and energy.
>
> The imperatives now are to see things through: to stick with the
> multistakeholder process that listens to all perspectives but gives nobody
> a right of veto; the accountability framework the community requires to
> accept the transition going ahead; and the changes to ICANN’s culture that
> will flow from a new accountability settlement.
>
> Dublin is a week away. The elephant in the room (the CCWG’s proposal and
> the ICANN Board’s counterproposal for the way to crystallise accountability
> powers) will need to be resolved, or eaten, or thrown in the ocean.
>
> My preference is of course for the product of the multistakeholder
> process, the model the CCWG has developed in public and with the
> involvement of all stakeholders. But unlike some others, I am not
> proclaiming bottom lines on any of the “how” – it is the “what,” the
> requirements and ability to meet them, that matter.
>
> The “what” is ensuring the Internet community, able to organise through
> ICANN’s open groupings, can hold a corporation with hundreds of staff,
> hundreds of millions of dollars, tight links with the American government,
> a monopoly ability to extract rents from the domain name industry, and a
> natural institutional desire to be as free of restraint as it can – can
> hold all that to account, given the huge imbalance of power, knowledge,
> resources that tilt the playing field of accountability entirely in ICANN’s
> favour.
>
> Beyond the "elephant," there are lots of other details that need to be
> sorted out.  It all matters – NTIA have been clear the proposal has to be
> bullet proof.
>
> In the end though, if there isn’t an accountability settlement that
> achieves consensus, then there isn’t going to be a proposal bullet proof or
> not.
>
> No accountability proposal – no IANA Stewardship Transition proposal. No
> transition proposal – no transition.
>
> No transition? All those risks the transition is designed to head off come
> back to life. And the multistakeholder approach discredited to boot.
>
> Those are the stakes on the table as we head to Dublin.
>
> Two final thoughts: where there’s a will there’s a way. And as an old
> high-school teacher used to say to me, “not easy, not optional.”
>
>
>
> --
>
> Jordan Carter
>
> Chief Executive
> *InternetNZ*
>
>
> +64-4-495-2118 (office) | +64-21-442-649 (mob)
> Email: jordan at internetnz.net.nz
> Skype: jordancarter
>
> Web: www.internetnz.nz
>
>
> *A better world through a better Internet *
>
>
>
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